Bobby Byrd - Lone Star Noir

This collection is comprised of works of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imaginations. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by Akashic Books
2010 Akashic Books

Series concept by Tim McLoughlin and Johnny Temple
Texas map by Aaron Petrovich

eISBN-13: 978-1-617-75001-4

ISBN-13: 978-1-936070-64-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010922717
All rights reserved

Akashic Books
PO Box 1456
New York, NY 10009
info@akashicbooks.com
www.akashicbooks.com

ALSO IN THE AKASHIC NOIR SERIES:

Baltimore Noir, edited by Laura Lippman

Boston Noir, edited by Dennis Lehane

Bronx Noir, edited by S.J. Rozan

Brooklyn Noir, edited by Tim McLoughlin

Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Tim McLoughlin

Brooklyn Noir 3: Nothing but the Truth
edited by Tim McLoughlin & Thomas Adcock

Chicago Noir, edited by Neal Pollack

D.C. Noir, edited by George Pelecanos

D.C. Noir 2: The Classics, edited by George Pelecanos

Delhi Noir (India), edited by Hirsh Sawhney

Detroit Noir, edited by E.J. Olsen & John C. Hocking

Dublin Noir (Ireland), edited by Ken Bruen

Havana Noir (Cuba), edited by Achy Obejas

Indian Country Noir, edited by Sarah Cortez & Liz Martnez

Istanbul Noir (Turkey), edited by Mustafa Ziyalan & Amy Spangler

Las Vegas Noir, edited by Jarret Keene & Todd James Pierce

London Noir (England), edited by Cathi Unsworth

Los Angeles Noir, edited by Denise Hamilton

Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Denise Hamilton

Manhattan Noir, edited by Lawrence Block

Manhattan Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Lawrence Block

Mexico City Noir (Mexico), edited by Paco I. Taibo II

Miami Noir, edited by Les Standiford

Moscow Noir, edited by Natalia Smirnova & Julia Goumen

New Orleans Noir, edited by Julie Smith

Orange County Noir, edited by Gary Phillips

Paris Noir (France), edited by Aurlien Masson

Philadelphia Noir, edited by Carlin Romano

Phoenix Noir, edited by Patrick Millikin

Portland Noir, edited by Kevin Sampsell

Queens Noir, edited by Robert Knightly

Richmond Noir, edited by edited by Andrew Blossom,
Brian Castleberry & Tom De Haven

Rome Noir (Italy), edited by Chiara Stangalino & Maxim Jakubowski

San Francisco Noir, edited by Peter Maravelis

San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Peter Maravelis

Seattle Noir, edited by Curt Colbert

Toronto Noir (Canada), edited by Janine Armin & Nathaniel G. Moore

Trinidad Noir, Lisa Allen-Agostini & Jeanne Mason

Twin Cities Noir, edited by Julie Schaper & Steven Horwitz

Wall Street Noir, edited by Peter Spiegelman

FORTHCOMING:

Barcelona Noir (Spain), edited by Adriana Lopez & Carmen Ospina

Cape Cod Noir, edited by David L. Ulin

Copenhagen Noir (Denmark), edited by Bo Tao Michalis

Haiti Noir, edited by Edwidge Danticat

Lagos Noir (Nigeria), edited by Chris Abani

Mumbai Noir (India), edited by Altaf Tyrewala

Pittsburgh Noir, edited by Kathleen George

San Diego Noir, edited by Maryelizabeth Hart

TABLE OF CONTENTS

WHAT THE HELL IS TEXAS, ANYWAY?

I dearly love the state of Texas,
but I consider that a harmless perversion on my part,
and discuss it only with consenting adults.

Molly Ivins

F orgive me, but I am a poet by trade. I dont come to noir fiction on the morning train in the bright sunlight.

I come obliquely through the back roads of my poetics and love for the American idiom. Im a member of the second generation of those notorious New American Poets anthologized by Donald Allen in 1960. Folks like Robert Creeley, Paul Blackburn, Philip Whalen, Jack Spicer, Ed Dorn, Gary Snyder, and, yes, Ginsberg and Jack Kerouacradical workers of the language back in their day. Because of these roots, and like so many of my fellow travelers, I have always been drawn to noir fiction. Especially as its practiced in America. My heroes from the beginning were Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, and later in the 1990s Elmore Leonard came along to feed my imagination when my writing needed an injection of hard-boiled storytelling and cutthroat dialogue.

But Texas? That was another journey. Growing up in Memphis and living for years in Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico, I never would have guessed that I would move to Texas. Yet, here I am, a longtime Texan.

When my family and I moved south from Albuquerque thirty-something years ago, we asked our friends (the worse sortwriters, intellectuals, ex-hippies) from the so-called land of enchantment where we should move: Las Cruces, New Mexico, or El Paso. Las Cruces, they all said without blinking. They sneered at anything Texas. Thats common in New Mexico. Colorado too. Texans are the Ugly Americans of the American Southwest. Thats the stereotype. Loud and arrogant. They buy a piece of land in the mountains, wanting to flee the flatlands and horrendous weather of Texas, and they bring Texas along with them.

So, taking our friends advice, we moved to Las Cruces. It was a mistake of the first order. After a couple of years we got bored. We started sniffing around El Paso forty-five miles down the road. Life was different there, somehow weird, a taste of dark mystery even in the bright Chihuahuan desert sunlightSpanish in the streets, goddamned real-life cowboys, Mennonites and Mormons from Mexico, a whole herd of Lebanese immigrants, the red-light district of Jurez a stones throw from downtown, regular people who transformed themselves into strange gory tales in the newspaper, the hot dog vendor on the street with his little stash of cheap dope to pay the bills, the bloody smell of the 1910 Mexican Revolution still hanging in the air. The place actually echoes loudly in the American psyche. It pops up all over American literatureAmbrose Bierce, Jack Kerouac, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Carlos Fuentes, Dagoberto Gilb, Benjamin Alire Senz, James Crumley, Abraham Verghese, Cormac McCarthy, and so many more. The place felt like home.

So I got my feet Texas wet in El Paso. Why we didnt move here in the first place, Ill never know. But people in El Paso will tell you they dont live in Texas anyway. They live in El Paso.

Huh?

Seems like everybody who lives in Texas has a snotty attitude about the place where they live. Even if they hate it. Like the bumper sticker from the 1980s, Lucky me, Im from Lubbock